Adrian is Auckland bureau chief for Aviation Week, based in New Zealand. He covers commercial aviation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Adrian was previously based in Aviation Week’s Washington office for nine years, writing for a range of the group’s publications and covering many aspects of the commercial aviation industry. He has won Australasian and international awards for his aviation writing.
Prior to joining Aviation Week in 2002, Adrian covered aviation industry and policy issues for two other publishing companies in Washington. He has also worked for newspapers in Texas and New Zealand, covering a wide range of topics. Adrian graduated from Auckland University with a degree in history and English in 1992.
U.S. Transportation Dept. officials have persuaded the Chinese government to resume open-skies talks, with a round of negotiations expected in late January. Aviation liberalization was one of many issues on the agenda at last week's Strategic Economic Dialogue in Beijing. Although no specific open-skies negotiations occurred, DOT representatives were able to use the SED process to convince high-level Chinese officials of the benefits of an open-skies deal.
Air New Zealand is introducing three new domestic routes and adding capacity on others, aided by its recent decision to buy three more Bombardier Q300s for its Air Nelson subsidiary. Next October, Air NZ will launch Invercargill-Wellington and New Plymouth-Christchurch direct flights, and will begin Tauranga-Christchurch flights in December. Capacity will be added to the Dunedin-Wellington and Queenstown-Wellington flights by using 66-seat ATR 72s on these routes.
Qantas plans to boost capacity by more than 60% on its Sydney-San Francisco route, and from March 26 will have five weekly flights between the cities. Currently, nonstop flights from San Francisco operate on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Monday and Saturday flights will now be added. "Since last March, when we relaunched Qantas flights [from Sydney] to San Francisco, we have received a very positive response from business and destination travelers," the airline said.
